Bullseye
by samchandler1986
Summary: Who holds a corporate meet and greet at a shooting range? [Debbie x Ruth]


"What the fuck is this shit?"

Bash licks his lips. "Potentially our next sponsor, Sam. Is there a problem?"

"Yeah there's a problem. Who the fuck holds a corporate meet and greet at a shooting range? I mean, how're you supposed to network if you're in ear defenders?"

"Maybe the kind of red blooded American stereotype a show that involves women grappling with one another is meant to attract?" says Debbie, under her breath. In spite of herself, Ruth smiles.

"What?" says Sam, catching the grin. "What'd she say?"

"Nothing," demurs Ruth, "just a joke." She stares back, at the face of coke-edged paranoia. "Just that—"

"Just that the kind of audience you're looking for probably has some overlap with someone who would hold a corporate at a shooting range," finishes Debbie.

"Huh." Sam sits back in his chair, considering. "Alright."

"So, you'll do it?" asks Bash, his hands steepled as if in actual prayer.

"Yeah, I'll do it," says Sam, around his cigarette. He ignores Bash's fist pump of celebration, sparking his lighter. "With these two."

"What?" says Ruth. "Oh, no. No, I can't—"

"Yeah you can," says Sam, as if that ends the debate.

She glances at Debbie, out of old habit, looking for back up. To her surprise her former friend meets her eyes, raising an immaculate eyebrow. "I mean, it could be fun. Right?" she says. And it isn't vengeful cruelty, or deliberate contrariness. Debbie _wants_ to do it, Ruth realises.

"Yeah," she finds herself saying, mirroring Debbie's tight smile. "Alright."

* * *

"So, just point and pull the trigger, right?"

"Right," says Chuck. He transfers his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. "You haven't done this before?"

"Uh, no," confesses Ruth.

"Don't over think it," he advises.

"Okay," says Ruth with a smile. Like it's an easy thing, to switch her yammering brain into low gear and just _do_ something without considering every angle.

She takes up a stance in the booth, squaring up to the distant target. Raises the pistol, closes one eye then the other. Lowers the gun for a moment, brings it up it again. _Just do it_ , she tells herself. _Just pull the trigger_ —

The noise and the recoil of the shot takes her by surprise; she flinches hard. In the shaking aftermath she inspects her target, looking for the bullet hole. It can't be that small, surely?

"Ah, looks like you missed," says Chuck. "Try again sweetheart."

She does. She does over and over, emptying the barrel of the pistol twice. She's grazing the edges of the target, never a hit even near the centre. And somehow, she senses, this is losing them the deal. Chuck and his equally odious brother Barry seem to need them all to be passable shooters before they'll commit to hitching their ridiculous _One Sheet_ toilet paper company star to GLOW's wagon.

She steps back for a moment. To her right, without much enthusiasm, Sam is reloading his gun. He fires off his rounds quickly, blinking like an owl with every shot. In his off-hand smoke curls from his cigarette. But at least he can hit the target.

She's been trying to avoid looking at Debbie since they arrived, something she's done so often in the past few weeks its practically become instinct. But she has to _know_ , doesn't she, so she grants herself a glance.

Her mouth drops open. Twelve little holes, bulls-eyeing the target. Chuck and Barry are standing either side of her, bearded Tweedldum and Tweedledee, but Debbie is pointedly ignoring them. _Bang-bang-bang_. Three more perfect shots.

"How are you _doing_ that?" Ruth finds herself saying, in spite of herself.

Perhaps she hears, in spite of the ear mufflers. Or maybe it's weeks of having to know _exactly_ where the other is, perhaps it carries over from the dream world of the wrestling ring into their waking life.

Or maybe, just maybe, for every aching second Ruth is forcing herself to not look at Debbie, her former friend is doing the same.

Whatever the cause, Debbie looks up at her, sees her expression of disbelief and smiles. "What?" she says, putting her gun down and sliding the ear-muffs around her neck.

"You're really good at this," says Ruth. " _How_ are you so good at this?"

And Debbie smiles, mischievously, like she does in Ruth's memory. "One of the few things my Dad taught me before he left and turned into a total asshole," she says. "Want me to show you?"

It's an act, Ruth thinks, it's _got_ to be an act. Something for the benefit of the gurning toilet paper brothers. There's no way, in reality, Debbie can be smiling at her like this, inviting her to share her space. It can't be real.

Ruth enters the booth, and realises she's not sure she cares.

"Okay," says Debbie, handing her the gun. "Relax your stance a bit. That's it." She considers Ruth's gunslinger pose critically. "You need to hold a little tighter…"

It's the wrestling, Ruth tells herself, as Debbie stands behind. They spend so much time in such close contact their personal boundaries have eroded. It's not so different from practicing a lock-up, over and over, is it? Not so different, that Debbie's hands fold over hers, breasts pressed into her back and breath on the nape of her neck—

"Okay," that looks better," says Debbie, stepping back. "Now, don't close your eyes. And stay relaxed as you can—"

Ruth fires. It takes ever her by surprise, her hands clearly on their own agenda while her brain takes a short trip into orbit somewhere.

"There you go," says Debbie, her jaw moving from side to side, reigning in the whoop of pleasure Ruth knows is hiding just under the surface. "Easy, right?"

"Yeah," Ruth manages, breathlessly, physically incapable of caring any _less_ about her bullseye. "Easy."


End file.
